SWC Report Highlights Rise of QAnon Conspiracy Theories

On September 22, the Simon Wiesenthal Center released a report documenting how the conspiracy theory known as QAnon came to be and how it’s laced with anti-Semitism.

According to the report, the conspiracy theory has origins from a conspiracy theory during the 2016 presidential election known as “Pizzagate,” which was based around the idea that then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and other Democrats were running a sex-trafficking ring out of the Comet Ping Pong restaurant in Washington, D.C. QAnon piggybacks off Pizzagate in alleging that there’s a secret group of pedophiles known as the “deep state” that is responsible for the world’s ills, and President Donald Trump is fighting against it.

Believers of the QAnon conspiracy think George Soros, the Rothschild family and the Saudi royal family are the “puppet masters” of the aforementioned group, and that the Clintons, Obamas and Hollywood celebrities such as Oprah Winfrey and Ellen DeGeneres are aiding and abetting it.

“They face accusations including operating child sex trafficking rings, and practicing satanic rituals,” the report stated. “Some proponents go as far as accusing these individuals of harvesting blood from children, to acquire the chemical adrenochrome, which they claim is a psychedelic with anti-aging properties.”

These allegations all stem from a user on the forum sites 4chan and 8chan named Q Clearance Patriot, or Q. No one knows the identity of Q.

The report argued that QAnon essentially is an example of old conspiracy theories repackaged into a modern format, as conspiracy theories generally have been predicated on the idea of “a secret elite cabal controlling the world for political and financial gain have surfaced in many forms throughout history.” As such, experts including former George Mason University Genocide Studies Professor Gregory Stanton have argue that QAnon is similar to “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” a book published in the late 19^th century that serves as the basis for myriad anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.

Additionally, the report argued that allegations of harvesting children’s blood is a common anti-Semitic blood libel.

The report noted that while it’s hard to quantify the full extent of support for QAnon, there seems to be “hundreds of thousands of people engaging with Q’s content online, in the USA, and the content is spreading to thousands of others globally.” The report went onto cite a study from The Soufan Center stating that “as many as 77 Congressional candidates seeking election in 2020” have expressed support for Q, including several Republican candidates, such as Georgia congressional candidate Marjorie Taylor Greene. Greene, whom President Donald Trump has endorsed, has claimed she no longer supports Q.

At time, support for QAnon has manifested into incidents such as “a train derailment in San Pedro, CA (March 2020); the arrest of a woman in New York who threatened to kill Joe Biden for his alleged involvement in a deep state sex trafficking ring (April 2020); as well as two separate murders and two separate cases of kidnappings,” according to the report. The FBI also has warned that QAnon could result in “criminal, sometimes violent activity.”

“Increased legitimacy from political candidates, the FBI’s warning that it is likely to inspire domestic extremists, alongside multiple documented violent incidents supposedly inspired by QAnon, also could signal that QAnon poses a dangerous threat to U.S. society,” the report concluded. “As the phenomenon is being documented in other countries, it could continue to have a growing impact on public perceptions of government globally, and harm public trust in financial and political institutions and certain government officials.”